Why experiential? The future is engagement

 

 

As experience-savvy generation Y become the account execs of today and cut-budgets mean achieving cut-through is a meaner feat than ever before, the marketing landscape is changing - and experiential is firmly on the horizon.

 

Experiential marketing is the process of identifying and satisfying customer needs and aspirations profitably, engaging them through two-way communications that bring brand personalities to life and add value to the target audience. 

 

Experience has become the preferred currency, utilised by brands who create meaningful platforms for engagement with their target audiences and innovative campaigns that stand out from the crowd. Live brand experiences are generating brand advocacy, word of mouth and, in some cases, every marketers dream: brand evangelism. Live brand experiences are simply two-way interactions between a brand and its target audiences that can be equally successful across events as well as many interactive technologies and platforms that facilitate communication between consumers and brands in real time.

 

Experiential marketing is the integrated methodology that seamlessly weaves the traditional channels to amplify the reach and impact of these live brand experiences, placed at the core of the campaign creative. PR amplification, the use of video and photos from the experience to produce ad creative, social media, specially set up microsites with customised applications, and user generated content can all play instrumental roles in expanding the reach of the live brand experience. And, when carefully planned, work hand-in-hand to form the integrated experiential marketing campaign.

 

Well-designed experiences are not simply extensions of the product and retail environment brought into the customers world, but are actually added value interactions that are relevant and meaningful to the people with whom they wish to engage. These creative branded activities strategically combine different aspects that communicate the brands unique personality and values.   

 

 

BETTER is a unique brainstorming model, developed to ensure that the content behind the experiential marketing campaign is right for the brand and the participants. By following through the several prescribed steps in each of the model's stages, one can be confident that the creative ideas are relevantly inspired and tick the necessary boxes:

 

• Brand personality
• Emotional connection
• Target audience 
• Two-way interaction
• Exponential element
• Reach

Generating the right ideas for your brands live brand experience is crucial. Often where agencies go wrong is they propose product-led experiences that don’t bring to life the brand personality. Creating the sensation that you are bringing the target audience members closer to their aspirational lifestyle is a crucial aim for many brands' live brand experiences. 

 

The BETTER brainstorm process should begin by collecting any existing research and having it handy. Start with the B stage, thinking of the brand personality identified from the three main brand values or human-like characteristics, then think how to create an emotional and multi-sensory connection. Then take into consideration the target audience (their likes, their lifestyle) and combine the first three steps to create the two-way interaction. Build in exponential elements to ensure that you have triggers designed to generate word-of-mouth and then think of how to maximise the reach, taking into consideration the amplification channels, the initial interactions from the live brand experience, and the word-of-mouth reach.

 

Here is a sample topline idea for a make-up brand whose target audience is females aged 20-35. The brand would hire an experiential marketing agency who would firstly run pre-activity, sending out ‘brand scouts’ with Polaroid cameras around relevant shopping areas to snap the target audience members, with a sticker placed on the Polaroid directing the participants to the make-up brand's specially set-up microsite. Once on the microsite, they give their email address in return for a download of an invitation to the make-over experience, with a 'forward to a friend' link, ensuring that the right demographic are encouraged to attend.

 

Additionally, digital ads displayed on fashion oriented websites would promote the live brand experience, raising awareness and encouraging those interested to apply for an invitation on a specially set-up microsite. The make-up brand would also email its database to give them the opportunity to apply for invitations. 

 

The second step would be to create a mini outdoor make-over stage, complete with branding, lights and mirrors, designed to reflect the look and feel of the backstage areas of catwalk shows. As part of the visual representation and to bring the target audience members closer to the brand, hired space in the central atriums of high footfall shopping centres can showcase the brand's latest collection with some of the pictures already taken projected onto the backdrop of the catwalk, contrasted by pictures of people who had been made-over by the brand's make-up artists.

 

On the opening day of the live brand experience, a female celebrity attends to have her make-up done in time to attend a high profile event that evening, encouraging press coverage by doubling this appearance as a photocall opportunity where photographers would be present to send out the photographs with captions to the press. The agency would film the entire make-over experience, edit it and include commentary by a well known make-up artist to explain the role of each item of make-up and discuss the techniques with which it had been applied onto the participant.

 

The content would double as a‘ make-up tutorial’ to either broadcast on a targeted TV channel (i.e. UKTV Style) or placed on the brand's website, YouTube and to play on retail screens. The events progress will be ‘twittered’ live and the participant data captured on the microsite would be collated. The particpants are then asked if they would like to enter into a competition to win a shopping holiday  ‘with friends’, where an applicant would need to submit the contact data of the friends that they would like to  take if they were to win.

 

Brand personality: Glamorous, fashionable, expert.

 

In an era where competition is stiff, it is brands that place an experiential marketing methodology at the heart of their marketing communications strategy who differentiate themselves, spend less and sell more, while still escaping price wars.

 

Companies are realising that to secure the lifetime value of their brand's customers by gaining true customer loyalty, they must create a positive experience and give back. Thus, relationships between brands and their target audiences are being revolutionised. The new marketing era, the experiential marketing era, focuses on providing target audiences with immersive branded experiences that add value to their lives and, ultimately, generate brand advocacy and positive word-of-mouth.